Runaway Groom [Ethma]

9

ETHAN

Raven and Adam are waiting for me the second I step back into the villa after taking half the contestants out for our group breakfast date.

Do you have any idea what it's like to try to enjoy a piece of bacon when ten women are competing to get your attention?

Let's just say it's a good thing I have another group date for lunch in a couple of hours, because I didn't eat a damn thing. I was too busy listening to the Brittanys make a big deal about the fact that their high metabolism allowed them to indulge in the banana-macadamia pancakes while the rest of the women were eating birdseed (granola).

I also learned that Jane plans to make me a "mean zucchini frittata" someday, that Sidney knows everything there is to know about the health benefits of chia seeds, and that Hannah's allergic to grapefruit juice, which prompted Brittany B. to try to coax her to take a sip of juice, "just to test it."

The only one who didn't make my brain want to explode was Olivia, but she was at the opposite end of the table.

"You ready for the recap?" Raven asks. "We'll talk, just us first, then turn on the camera."

Fuck me.

I point at the large bag on her shoulder. "Any aspirin in there?"

She gives me a faint smile as she opens the bag and digs around. "That bad, huh?"

My only answer is to dump three pills out of the pill bottle she hands me. I take them into the kitchen and wash them all down with water from the fridge.
Five minutes later I'm sitting on the couch in the library, one of the few rooms designated as off-limits to contestants. That sounded great until I realized that it's also my punching-bag room—the place where the producers drag me to tell me all the things to do more of or to do less of, the place where I go on camera to describe who I'm falling for after two fucking days in Maui.

I eye the fully stocked sideboard. A screwdriver wouldn't be unwelcome right now, but I decide to wait until the headache passes.

"So," Raven says, sitting across from me and crossing her long, thin legs. She leans forward, iPad balanced on one palm, as she studies me. "How are we doing?"

How arewe doing? Well, let's see, Raven.

The first contestant I sent home was completely unstable. Most of the rest of the contestants don't seem to have a single interesting thought to split between them. The one contestant that I find even a little bit interesting is heading home tonight, because I promised her.

The pain in my temple skyrockets at that thought, and I realize that's the crux of my bad mood. Not Sidney and her chia seeds, not the Brittanys and their insistence on feeding me bits of pancake, not even psycho LeAnn. It's Emma who's bugging the shit out of me. Emma and her easy dismissal of me that kept me up all night. Emma and the way she looked with that fucking T-shirt plastered to her slim curves that I can't get out of my mind.

You're Hollywood.

Her off-the-cuff comment still chafes, hitting an Achilles' heel I didn't know I had —or at least not one that I let myself admit existed.

Ever since Layla rejected me for something—someone—more "reliable," I've been telling myself that it was fine. That the joke was on her, because I was spending my days eating sushi in the sunshine while she cooked pot roast for my banker brother.

I don't regret following my dreams to Los Angeles.
But I regret losing the girl, and I don't need Emma and her fancy Pretty clothes reminding me of that.